It’s a staple of TV and movies: one sibling finds out about wrongdoing by another sibling, and will tell the parents unless they get money/takeover chores/etc. But as a kid, I never blackmailed my sister or vice versa–we were too eager to blab on each other. Did this happen to you as a kid? If so, how long did it last and did the secret get out anyway?
Margaret: It’s blackmail, Frank.
BJ: “Blackmail” is such an ugly word.
Hawkeye: We prefer “extortion.”
When we were adolescents, my brother, who is 3 years younger, was annoyed at me for borrowing some of his record albums. I said, “You keep quiet about me borrowing your albums, and I won’t say anything about what I found in them.”
That’s where he was storing some porno, which by any standards was extremely softcore. :o
Picture it: rural Georgia, 1986. My older brother is heading out to meet friends on a Friday evening. Mom’s instructions included “Y’all stay at R’s house. Don’t go to the river tonight.”
Fast-forward to early Saturday morning: tapping on my bedroom window. My brother outside, whispering “make an excuse about going to the library, and meet me down at the paved road.”
And that’s the day that I learned that a 1975 Cadillac Sedan de Ville will tow a long wheel base 1976 F250 out of a shallow river. My brother was spiritually in my debt for a couple of weeks, but I never collected. We always covered for one another.
Mama learned about the incident when my brother and I were about 40.
She still doesn’t know about the night that my brother outran the law in the same truck. But he’s my brother. We always have one another’s backs.
I might have. I haven’t spoken to my siblings in about two years. Same goes for the rest of my family.
There was that time that my sister and I biked down to the local market to buy some forbidden snacks, only to run into my brother who had done the same thing. He threatened to tell on us, until we pointed out that we would just do the exact same thing to him. We all bought each others’ silence.
There were a lot of incidents of “Stop doing that or I’m going to tell,” which sometimes worked.
I was going to post that I still have dirt on my siblings but I’m embarrassed because SpoilerVirgin got there first and frankly, I don’t remember that incident.
I think the potential for blackmail is more powerful, who actually blackmails family?
No. I was raised with cousins, and we were partners. Most of the time we were in on it together so there was nothing to blackmail each other over. Once we got older, we covered for each other. When we were young we told on each other immediately.
Why blackmail when you can tattle?? 
Actually, we didn’t do much of either. I knew some stuff my brother had done but I had no reason to tell my mom since it didn’t result in bloodshed or destruction and it would never have occurred to me to use it against him. I was too much of a goody-goody.
Hello.
Welcome to the sdmb.
Zombie thread but i’ll play. Hell yes 3 boys one girls, two working parents and it was the 80’s, so we were totally unsupervised. There was tons of blackmail and scheming going on in all directions and combinations.
I once blackmailed one of my brothers (I forget what he did) and made him my slave. After a couple of days I sold him to my sister for a pack of gum
He’s a multi-millionaire now so no harm done I suppose.
He has a passle of kids himself and they have single-handedly invented every manner of vice amongst themselves (blackmail, ruinous usury, gambling, cheating etc…).
No. I was pretty mean to my little brother sometimes, but I never did that.
God, yes. My poor sibs still hold it against me.
I was the youngest, so my folks never believed a word I said. I was also the smallest, so any attempt would have been met with overwhelming force.
I did swish his toothbrush in the toilet a couple of times though. Told him in front of his kids too!
